Backwards Down the Number Line

Last year, I had to renew my passport and in the section where you have to put a referee (someone who has known you for a few years), I put my friend Greg Lydon. On the line that asks how long the person has known you, I was surprised to write "22 years." Though it made perfect sense it was odd to see how long I have been friends with my friends. 22 years puts us back to grade 7 at George St. Junior High. Others I have been friends with since grade 3 at St. Dunstan's Elementary School. That puts us back 26 years.

This weekend was both my birthday and my good friend Simon's birthday (November 20th and 21st respectively). We technically met in 1974 at the Victoria Public Hospital, which puts us back 35 years. I suppose 35 years is a bit of a milestone. Back when I was in high school, 35 seemed extremely old. Now that I'm 35, I still feel like a bit of a high school kid. So who knows? Maybe you feel the same no matter what age you are.

I've never been the most sentimental or enthusiastic person, but I feel birthdays are one of the nicest celebrations we have as humans. Though there are lots of birthdays cards to buy, the essence of the day isn't a Hallmark one. It's a celebration of life and the fact that our friends and loved ones made it through another year. There are people out there that hate the idea of birthdays - people that think they are stupid. On a personal level, I don't necessarily like growing older but the tradition of the birthday is a nice one. I cannot deny it.

We celebrated some October and November birthdays on Friday night at a party called Scorpia. It was nice to get so many people together and the second annual Scorpia proved to be another great party. Thanks for coming, everyone. I had a blast.

...and happy birthday, Si!

What's Been Going on in Taiwan...

Finally an update!!

First, let's start with Jenn's visit from Canada. We had a week in Taiwan together, then her sister Christie came to meet us and the three girls and Geoff travelled through Singapore, Malaysia and Southern Thailand together. It was great, after 6 years of living in Taiwan, to have Jenn here to see what it's all about. **One thing I'm going to miss about Taichung is the fresh flower market. Cheap and beautiful flowers!!

Next, we had a great visit with Geoff's parents, Hart and Janet. They even got to see Militant Hippi play! It was fun to have them here, and I think they really enjoyed themselves.


Now...let Festival Season begin! First there was the Taichung International Food and Music Festival. An afternoon of great food and music. As you can see, The Baker (aka Geoff) rocked out hard. Some of our students came to watch him play, too. It's always nice to see them outside of school, wearing their street clothes (not uniforms).

The second festival was Basic Aid. This is the one we held last year for the orphans in India. The weather kept many people away, but those who braved the rain and mud had a great time. We did manage to get some money for the two charities (Basic Human Needs in India and the Bunun Aborigional Tribe in Central Taiwan) despite the low numbers. This year it was held on top of a mountain overlooking the city of Puli. The first picture is a view from the mountain, which is absolutly gorgeous on a clear day. The second picture is of the latest band Geoff is playing in, Noise Pollution. Do yourself a favour and check out Oliver Benjamin Thayer, he's the lead singer.



Finally, there was PeaceFest. An awesome festival held in the north of Taiwan. We thought it was muddy at Basic Aid...until we arrived at PeaceFest. I can't figure out why Festival Season is held during the Rainy Season! Again, despite the rain and mud, we had a great time. Militant Hippi played, of course. The picture below is of MH's front man, Boston Paul, who had just dove off stage into the mud. A group shot of us and some good friends, and some mud dancers. It really was an amazing weekend! One of the many that we'll miss.




Two random things that I'll miss about Taiwan:
1) It looks like blood doesn't it? It's what is spit out after chewing beetle nut, or bin lang. It's the equivalent of our chewing tobacco, but much more disgusting.
2) Having our laundry done and folded for us. We drop it off on Friday night and it's ready Saturday afternoon. I've mastered the art of taking loads of stuff on the scooter!

Really Good Update...Coming Soon...

We know we really suck at blogging these days, but we still love whoever takes the time to check in here, and we will try a little harder...coming soon...

Happy New Year

I must admit I've been getting pretty lame with this blog site. I'm starting to get jealous of Simon's. Perhaps, he has more time at work to do things like this, I'm not sure.

Anyway, merry belated xmas to everybody. I hope everyone had a good holiday. Lindsay and I did. There were a few parties, including our annual open house (see below) and lots of turkey eaten and beer drunk. New Year's was great too. We spent the night at Moonshine Hill, which is the place in the mountains where I held that concert, Basic Aid, last year. It was a great way to bring in the new year, complete with fireworks (fireworks, and good ones, are easily accessible in this country. Lately, I've been becoming a bit of a pyrotechnician. If my career as a musician doesn't work out, maybe I can get on the road crew of a band).

So 2008 is here.

It's funny Simon mentioned me starting a Taiwan School of Rock. I still haven't yet but our school Christmas show is coming up (yes I realize it's after Christmas) and I have dressed my junior high class up in metal gear for an airband of The Final Countdown by Europe (perhaps the best worst song ever). Though they can't play the instruments, their headbanging, powerstances, and windmills are improving with each day. I am very proud of them. Of course, I will do the annual Youth in Asia band too.

On Friday, I'm off to the Philippines with a local bar owner named P.J. Kind of a random trip. In another two weeks or so, Lindsay and I are off to Malaysia and Thailand. I will be traveling with three girls. Though this might sound good as a Penthouse letter, I'm afraid it will mostly involve me sitting around waiting for them to get done shopping every day.

This is Michael (my friend and bandmate in Militant Hippi) and his wife Caroline.
I've been lame with the picture taking too. I couldn't really find any good ones of Xmas or New Year's. So here's a guy named Colin pretending to light a cigarette off our DVD fireplace.

Faye and the Slacks Farewell

Faye and the Slacks have their final show coming up this Saturday. Faye is moving on to Australia and I wish her the best of luck with her music career. It was lots of fun and I'm going to miss playing her songs. In the past year and four months, we played 33 shows in 10 different cities and towns throughout Taiwan, including two big festivals (Ahh...music stats. Still got the old Deadhead in me. Mind you, I haven't kept track of every setlist or how many times each song has been played, believe it or not.) Anyway, F.A.T.S. did quite well on the Taiwan music scene and I think the whole island is going to miss Faye's sweet voice. Thanks for the good times, Faye and good luck!

Welcome to Our World

Since we are environmentally friendly, we car-pool to and from school with a co-worker. This week, it was said co-worker's (Mary Ann aka Mrs. Robinson) turn to drive. On our way to school today her car was acting funny, and started to smell very bad. After stopping to pick up breakfast, the car wouldn't start again. Thankfully, our school is well-known at the breakfast shop and one of the workers drove us down the hill to work. Geoff was in contact throughout the day about the status of the car, how much it will cost, and when it will be fixed. After a few phone calls, leaving both Mary Ann and Geoff unsure of exactly what was happening, here is a text the breakfast shop worker, Vicky, sent. This is to tell us what the problem is, etc. You try and figure it out, cause we are still baffled... Obviously the language barrier is a daily issue, but sometimes it's worth it to share.

"The car problem is water tank have ink cause and take the trouble of hitting. Repair car personnel say surface repair about 4000 yuan by issue. Have a question to pay extra money to disassemble department to hit to take."

Ted and Brandy's Visit

Well, it's been three weeks since the last posting and though that seems like a long time, I thought it was a lot longer than that. At least, the summer re-cap is finished and I'm in September now. Perhaps, I will get you all caught up ... as long as I'm not too busy (see also lazy).

In September, my cousin Ted and his girlfriend Brandy came to visit. It was great and the timing was perfect as we had a four day holiday.

The day they flew in, Lindsay and I went up to Taipei to meet up with them. They were a little jet-lagged but we ended up doing a full day of sightseeing. Here's Brandy looking down from Taipei 101, the world's tallest building (until Dubai beats us. But that building isn't open to the public yet, though perhaps Doherty has gotten drunk and climbed it.)

A few days later, they came down to Taichung. This was my first time jamming with Ted. Here we are at an open mic at the Grooveyard. By the way, for those of you who haven't met my cousin. He's the one on drums not on sax (that's Patrick, the owner of Grooveyard).

Friday, straight from work, we took a road trip down to Kenting - the beach town at the southern tip of Taiwan. You see great Chinglish everywhere on the island but here's a classic from one of the rest stops.

Unfortunately, it absolutely poured the two days we were in Kenting. It was some of the worst rain I have seen in Taiwan. But at least there are other things to do in Kenting besides going to the beach. There are great restaurants and those carnival games like throwing darts at balloons to win lame prizes. And of course, you can drink beer in pretty much any kind of weather.

You can also play travel editions of Cranium. I can't remember who won but I assume it must have been Ted and I.

Fireworks are a little harder to do in rainy weather but we managed to put on a little show down on the beach late Saturday night. Here's us getting ready.

For about two or three hours on Sunday, the sun came out. We went straight to the beach.

Afterwards, we took a drive along the east coast. And then it started to pour again (basically about 0.1 seconds after this photograph was taken).

We drove into the mountains, to a town called Lushan. It's a little village with natural hot springs. All the hotels have the water pumped into them as well. Though we had a sweet grotto like hot spring on the main floor of our hotel, we also had our own personal one on the balcony outside our room.

Like I mentioned earlier, it was a national holiday in Taiwan and we had a four day weekend. I forget the holiday but there were celebrations all over. Lushan did their big celebration on Sunday with a pig roast, tons of fireworks and karaoke in the town square.

Here's Ted belting out some tunes. The town loved him.As nice as Lushan is, it is very hard to get good food. At one restaurant, we ended up with a plate full of deep fried mini shrimp. You eat them whole with shells, eyeballs, tails, etc. It wasn't exactly what we were craving but it wasn't too bad either. We managed to get a few of them down.The next day, we took a drive through the mountains. We went up to one of the highest points in Taiwan (maybe third of fourth highest). It was so beautiful.A nice clear day after a weekend of rain.It's very weird being up above the clouds. We are in a parking lot and there's the road. The clouds are not just above us but below us too. Now, you have to work hard to get to the beautiful mountain scenery. The road up to Hehuan Mountain is a little crazy. The road is built into the side of the mountain and there are very steep drop offs like you can see in this picture (scarier when it just drops off into clouds). The road is narrow in parts and you see a few rock slides and broken guard rails, crumbling roads, etc. It was a little tense in the car for parts of the drive and I don't think my Aunt Janice would have been too happy knowing where her son was this particular day. But it all worked out. No cars plunged off any cliffs, and we had a great little road trip. Thanks for the visit, guys. It was lots of fun.